


class of 201X

by abandonedquiche (chlorinetrifluoride)



Series: Under(grad)tale [11]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Gen, ah yes college shenanigans, arospec frisk, my favorite shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 15:18:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10993575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlorinetrifluoride/pseuds/abandonedquiche
Summary: Your name is Frisk, and most of your friends are getting ready to graduate soon. Also, you might be in love. You're not sure. It's never happened before.You're going to miss everyone when they leave. But they haven't left yet, so there's still time for at least one more dinner in the kitchen of destiny.





	class of 201X

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PlumTea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlumTea/gifts).



> first i wrote crack for this AU  
> then i wrote gen
> 
> shoutout to everyone who just finished or is getting ready to finish college this year  
> despite everything, it's still you

“I am going to miss you so very much when you graduate,” you tell Chara with a hug, one you hope doesn’t betray the fact that your heart is in your throat right now.

Chara gazes at you oddly after you say that, lets the electric teapot drop to their desk with a clatter. A caged, fight-or-flight look overtakes them.

“Chara?” you ask. “Did I say something wrong?”

 _“No, Frisk,”_  Chara maintains, beginning to calm down. “It’s just that… well, Bobbi told me almost the same thing, word for word, when she thought I was just transferring out of Mount Ebott U. It’s not the greatest memory, considering that I was in the ICU less than a week later.”

“Oh,” you say.

You’ve heard about their accident, both from them in very blunt tones, and in hushed whispers around the lab. Whispers wondering if Chara should ever be allowed to work with corrosive substances, even now. You think they’ve proven themself trustworthy. You think they’ve done their penance. It's been what, almost two years? Two years ago, you were still in high school.

An occasional dose of phytonadione for them and a few bad dreams out of Asriel are all that remains of the damage they did.

“I don’t see why you’d miss me,” they say. “There’s not all that much to miss, honestly. A cutting remark, an unkind turn of a phrase, a bunch of curse words you don’t even understand. Not much at all.”

You don’t bother to say _“you saved me from my father”_ or _“you taught me how to fight better”_ or _“you re-did all the trials I fucked up when I didn’t put the samples in the centrifuge at the right RPM, and didn’t even complain about how I hadn’t been paying attention”_ or _“you’re really nice underneath all your hatred and i’m sorry for what the world did to you”_ and all the million and one reasons why you love Chara so.

Mostly, you think you’ll be a little lost after they graduate. They’ll be living with Asriel, permanently, probably. For good reason. And they’re not the only one in the class of 201X whom you’ll miss. 

There’s Bobbi, who likes to make breakfast, and Ragel, who sleeps like the dead, and Shyren, who loves to sing, but only when nobody’s listening, and Papyrus, who is always enthusiastic, and Napstablook and his mixtapes. You’re waiting for his next set of tracks to drop. Somehow he and Shyren got over their mutual timidity for long enough to record an entire EP. You can't wait to hear it. 

And even Berger, who is like Chara’s long lost twin in terms of cynicism.

But you’ll miss Chara most of all. Because you _love_ them.

It takes you ages to fall in love. Ages on ages on ages. Years, usually. It doesn’t happen often, the way it’s _supposed_ to.

Chara would say something derisive about that, if you voiced it.

_“There’s no ‘supposed to’ with feelings, for fuck’s sake, Frisk.”_

 They’d definitely say something like that.

Actually, it's never happened, ever. Not even once.

Once you fall, though. _Once you fall…_

You’re not sure how to fall in love, honestly.

It’s the same way Chara taught you how to fall down in the snow and ice, back when you two were just friendly acquaintances, and you were accompanying them through the aftermath of a blizzard to the CORE to get their INR checked at the medical center.

They taught you how to fall properly, how to do minimal damage to yourself in the act.

You’re not yet sure how to fall in love that way, or any way. You think you’ll figure it out.

Oh, you know how to _love_. You love almost everyone you come across. You have yet to meet someone altogether undeserving of love. Everyone deserves love. It’s like sunshine, resplendent yet integral.

Chara grabs hold of the pendant of their locket, the way they always do when they’re not fully grounded. You take one of their thin hands. You’ve been making jagacida for them all year, and they still have yet to put on any weight.

You think of your brother Javier, still at home, probably making dinner right now in his stained apron. Maybe he could make it better. He could definitely make it better. 

You simply cannot compete with him, at least where kitchens are concerned.

You hope the gesture conveys what your words cannot. You’ll be there to ground them until they graduate, the same way you would everyone else you love. And then you’ll hand them over to Asriel, and probably become a regular fixture on his couch. He won’t mind. He likes you. He thinks you’re sweet, though you find him slightly patronizing.

Chara isn’t nearly as delicate as the world thinks they are, him included. They’re resilient. They bounce back. Maybe not quickly. But always, eventually.

“Yes, Frisk, I’m right here. I just… “ They pause. “I lose sight of myself sometimes.”

“I know.”

They snort. “Of course you do, you’re my friend. One of my best friends.”

“I know.”

You’re starting to go a little nonverbal. You don’t let go of their hand. They don’t shake it off, either.

Ragel bangs down the door to your room to inform you that dinner’s ready. The noise startles Chara, so you’re the one to answer.

“Hey there, cutie-pie,” you say easily. You can’t count on both hands how many times you’ve flirted with Ragel, or with everyone else in Waterfall Quad, Building Four. “How’s your philo thesis going?”

All these seniors in the honors program, scrambling to finish their respective theses. It’s all they ever talk about at dinner.

“Hey, yourself, Frisk. And it’s going. Slow going, but it’s going. My first reader’s going to kill me at this rate.”

“You know I’d personally _read_ anything you want me to _read_ ,” you say with a wink. 

Ragel gives Chara one of his “can you believe the freshman?” looks, one you don’t miss. You don’t know why you’re still The Freshman, even though you’re a junior by accumulated credits, and a second term sophomore by amount of time spent in this school. Probably because you’re babyfaced and too nice for your own good. Chara frequently says the second thing about you.

As long as you’re keeping everyone amused.

Dinner is how dinner usually is. Berger on his laptop, working on his thesis, and complaining about Ragel’s cooking, which he hasn’t tasted yet. Bob’s in the library, Berger informs Ragel. Working on her own thesis and trying to drown out all distraction with pop music blaring through her headphones. 

You ask Berger what The Backstreet Boys are, and he tells you it’s before your time, and it's probably better if you _don't_ know. Before most of your times, in fact.

“If I felt like being poisoned, I would have stayed in Hotland and let Mettaton cook,” Berger says drily, smoking one of his cigarettes out the window.

“You’re welcome to go back if you want,” Ragel retorts.

“Nah, not leaving, when I’m this hungry,” he replies. “Sides, as long as you didn’t copy Papyrus’s recipe for spaghetti, your cooking should at least be edible.”

You don’t know why everyone hates on Papyrus’s cooking. Sure he still hasn’t figured out how to not over- or undercook pasta, but at least his tomato sauce is pretty good now.

“Well, if the great salutatorian deems my food edible, it should certainly be up to scratch,” Ragel says, grinning.

A few weeks ago, it came out that Berger was set to be the salutatorian to the class of 201X. Nobody was more surprised than he was. He maintains that Mettaton rigged this in order to force him to give a speech. Your entire friend group has been mocking him about it, except you. You think it’s their way of telling him how proud they are.

“Oh, so Mettaton can rig grades, now,” Chara commented, long-accustomed to Berger’s propensity for blaming Mettaton for everything bad that happens in his life. “Wish I knew that earlier, I would have told him to fix my B+ in Orgo II.”

* * *

 

“Fuck, I’m going to miss this kitchen,” Chara says, now. “Waterbugs aside, I think this is where we learned _everything_.”

“I learned so much about Asriel’s falsetto range,” Ragel jokes.

Apparently, back when Chara was a freshman, Asriel had encountered a cockroach in the sink, let out a high pitched scream, ran back to Chara’s room, and relied on them to protect him from the danger.

“You think that of us? _We_ are not in danger. I _am_ the danger. I am the one who _knocks_ ,” Chara had replied, at least they way they told the story. It took you another several months to actually _understand_ that reference.

_(It’s all fun and games until a bunch of chemists and aspiring chemists decide to binge watch Breaking Bad in the lab.)_

Then, Chara killed the bug with their left slipper and rolled their eyes.

“I learned about how Bob looks in nothing but a t-shirt,” Berger says.

All of you laugh at that. 

Once, a severely hungover Bob had set out to cook her usual waffles in the kitchen in nothing but a faded Star Wars t-shirt and a pair of ratty undies, because this was one of the kitchens on the women’s floor. Who gave a shit about pants when most of the people here are also women? 

She hadn’t counted on Berger to be sitting in there, waiting for Ragel to text him back, because Aaron was in the corresponding kitchen on the men’s floor, and he’d be damned if he ever dealt with that guy. 

Then she let out a scream worthy of Asriel, and smacked Berger in the head when he wouldn’t stop staring at her. He still insists that he was staring because of the screaming.

“I learned that there is no upper limit for garbage in this building,” Chara deadpans. “And also, how to make a grilled cheese sandwich. Thanks, Ragel.”

You figure this is sharing time, so you struggle to think of something to share.

“I learned that, uh, you should always be watchful, because someone is probably out to get you.”

More laughter, all around. Even from Shyren, who’s just come in from her advanced vocal training class.

“Learned that from Chara and their endless Chara-isms, no doubt,” Berger says.

 _“Building Four is just a microcosm of the whole fucking world, an endless sea of garbage,”_ Ragel says, quoting another Chara-ism.

Chara looks vaguely pleased with themself and their legacy.


End file.
